Translating Turkish Literature with Aron Aji
111 Minna Street Gallery | San Francisco, CA
Find out how a religion survives without any art. That’s just what happens in A Long Day’s Evening when the Emperor of Byzantium orders the destruction of all religious paintings and icons. Veteran Turkish translator Aron Aji here talks about his work with a masterwork by 20th-century Turkish author Bilge Karasu, often referred as “the sage of Turkish literature.”
Recipient of a National Translation Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, Aji here discusses the challenges inherent in working from this challenging language.
Aron Aji is a native of Turkey. He received an NEA Translation Fellowship and then the PEN Translation Prize for his translation of Bilge Karasu’s Long Day’s Evening (City Lights, 2012). A member of the American Literary Translators Association and PEN, Aji is the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at St. Ambrose University, and an affiliate faculty member at University of Iowa’s MFA in Translation program.
Bilge Karasu (1930-1995) was born in Istanbul. Often referred to as “the sage of Turkish literature,” during his lifetime he published collections of stories, novels, and two books of essays.